AT THE HALL OF THE VINLAND CHAMPIONS
"Whether you think so or not, I know that Gudrid would not keep milk in
a fish-pail," the Bull's voice rose above the racket.
There was not a little racket to surmount, for it was rising time at the
new band's new booth. In the high-seat that had been built for him
midway the length of the hall, the red-cloaked chief occupied the
interval before breakfast with rune-carving; but that was the only
employment which was being carried on in silence. Whistling boys were
lacing their high boots along the benches right and left of the
high-seat; grumbling boys were just turning out of the bunks behind
those benches; jeering boys were throwing bedclothes at the sluggards,
and disputing boys were clattering bowls and trenchers on the tables
which stood on either side the fire. One of these table-boys was the
short and chesty Bull, sniffing hostilely at the milk he was pouring;
and the head of the division was Brand, the long and loose-jointed.
Over a platter of cold venison, he frowned on his scullions. "Gudrid has
nothing to do with this house," he snubbed the faultfinder; then, in
peremptory aside, "Olaf, keep that door shut! Do you think it is warm
outside?"
"Do you think that any one who eats your cooking needs to be told that
Gudrid did not do it?" retorted the Bull, refusing to be snubbed.
A sigh came out of Erlend's handsome mouth as he looked up from hunting
a lost button among the pine branches of the floor. "Ah, Gudrid! After
that last meal she invited me to take in their booth, eating here has
been like living on seaweed!"
Brand's frown took on an edge of scorn. "Fussers! Go and live in
Gudrid's house! It may be that she would allow you to crawl into the
cradle with the baby. Yesterday the grumbling was because I put my head
out of the door to look at a dog-fight and the bread got a little
burned. If I were as womanish as the rest of you, I would braid my hair
and put on skirts!"
Still bending over his rune-carving, the young chief spoke with a drawl:
"Here is something worth a hearing! Is it in truth your opinion that
there is the most manfulness in you?"
Surprise took the head-cook a little aback; then defiance took him a
long way forward, flourishing his red mane. "Yes, I think so. You also
found fault with the bread, for all your Viking training. I think I am
the most hardy man here."
When Alrek's knife had cut another rune upon his stick, he straightened
deliberately. "Yesterday," he explained, "Karlsefne gave the chiefs the
advice to pick out each week five men who should have it for their sole
service to keep the camp in fire-wood----"
A prolonged groan interrupted him; of all the burdens of housekeeping,
fuel-getting weighed the most heavily.
"----and he bade me send the hardiest man in our booth. I intended Domar
to go, but now I see that Brand Erlingsson is the man to do it."
"Hail to the chief!" yelled Strong Domar. And Brand's flame of defiance
sank in ashes of sulkiness; and from the others came shouts of laughter.
"He will wish he was back at kitchen work!" "Tree-chopping is the least
interesting--" "And the weather is such that wood lasts the shortest
time--" "Still Karlsefne is lacking payment--" "Never will we get to
cutting timber for the ship!"
The Hare made a pettish flourish with the knife he was using to trim
away the rags from his garments. "Who wants to prepare for anything so
far in the future? Why will you, Olaf, open that door? What I should be
glad of is a chance to exercise myself for the spring games. Since we
began this way of living, I have not had one race worth talking about."
"I should be thankful if we could get a chance to go north where the big
game is," Erlend said with a disapproving glance at the empty walls.
"All the booty we have to show is the Skraelling hatchet, and Alrek has
the habit of carrying that in his belt. Many hunting journeys will be
required to make this booth equal to the others in outfittings. Let
your eyes run over it and then think of Karlsefne's!"
Thinking, they were silent for a little, gazing around at the great room
which even in the fire-glow showed so baldly white with newness.
Karlsefne's walls were decorated with bears' heads and eagles' claws and
antler-racks of shining weapons; and Karlsefne's benches were covered
with rich furs, and his high-seat had velvet cushions stuffed with
eider-down.
"Alrek, when is it your intention to take the time to get furnishings?"
Erlend besought.
The chief shook his brown head steadily. "Not until we get out of the
debt which we got into to build this booth," he answered, and closed the
opening discussion by putting aside his rune-stick and rising. "Now it
seems to me that you are all looking too far into the future. I should
be content if I could get something to eat. Who has gone after the fish?
And what is the reason that he is not back again?"
As head-cook, Brand answered him, though sulkily: "Gard has gone after
the fish, and it is high time that he was back again."
"That is what I have been trying to do, look for him," little Olaf the
Fair spoke up for the first time, in aggrieved tones. And secure at last
from interference, he flung the door open to the nipping January wind.
"No, I see nothing of him--but I do hear the snow crunch!"
"It is certainly time," Brand blustered.
Nevertheless he bent his lank length over the fire with recovered
good-humor; and greater alacrity came into the movements of those who
were not yet dressed, while those who were, turned toward the door,
gibes at each tongue's end.
The nature of their greeting changed, however, when Gard the Ugly had
stamped into the room and they saw the size of the catch swinging at his
side. Waking, their sleeping appetites cried out in alarm:
"Only three!" "Go into the hands of the Troll--" "--gone long enough to
get thirty!" "What in the Fiend's name has come to the fishing?"
Tossing his fish to the clamoring cooks, Gard was a long time pulling
off his fur-lined gloves before he answered: "Nothing has come to the
fishing."
"What has come to _you_ then?" Brand demanded.
After a while Gard said gruffly: "I forgot to take any more."
"_Forgot!_" echoed the chorus; and Erlend laid his plump hands on the
Ugly One's shoulders and shook him good-naturedly.
"Are you asleep?" he inquired.
Gard pushed off his brown cloak and with it his questioner. "Since I can
feel your grasp, I am not asleep. I think I have seen Hallad's ghost."
"What!" cried the chorus; and Domar, mistaking it for a joke, burst into
his uproarious laugh. He stopped abruptly when he found that he was
alone, and Gard spoke without further interruption:
"It happened that the first set of lines I stopped at had been robbed,
so I was obliged to go across the river, which is what makes me rather
late. Over there I had pulled up three fish when I heard a noise on the
bank and looked around. Some evergreen trees hang down their branches
there, and they are white with snow; he had on a white cloak that mixed
him with them, at first. But suddenly I saw him looking out at me, as
near as that bowl. His eyes were very wide open, and his face was white
as milk. It may be that he would have spoken to me, but I did not wait
to see."
"And therein you showed sense," Domar breathed in sympathy. But again he
was on the unpopular side, for Ketil began to hoot:
"If you had waited, it is most likely you would have found out that you
are a simpleton. Why should Hallad be dressed in white like a slave? He
wore green when he went on his death-journey. Is it likely that Ran
keeps new cloaks for drowned people?"
"Certainly, I think you are asleep after all!" Erlend laughed; which was
the signal for a flight of chaff until Brand at his fish-fork endangered
the peace by scoffing:
"I think you are lying."
To have said that to some of the band would have been to bring on a
fight to the death, and many caught breath apprehensively before they
remembered that this was one of the points about which Gard's
thrall-blood gave him feelings different from theirs. He answered
without resentment:
"I am not apt to lie when nothing is to be gained by it. I call Thor as
witness that I have spoken the truth!" His oath he directed toward the
chief, who had returned to his high-seat and from there listened
intently to what passed.
But in the very act of nodding, Alrek Sword-Bearer broke off to ponder;
and in the midst of pondering, he began to grin. "If you want to know my
belief," he said, "it is that you saw the Weathercock's thrall, Tunni."
Instantly the chorus seconded him. "That is certainly the truth of the
matter!" "Their hair is of the same color--" "--the branches hid its
shortness--" "and explains the slaves' cloak----"
"And explains why his look was fear-full," Alrek added, "if, as I think,
it was he who robbed the lines to save himself the trouble of going
farther. He would think his hide in danger of a flogging----"
"Which it will get!" roared Gard; whereupon the chorus redoubled its
delighted jeering.
This one time, however, the Ugly One's patience had a limit. Gradually
his swarthy face turned mottled red; slowly a gleam came into the dull
eyes above the high cheek-bones. Suddenly his voice rumbled through
theirs: "If any of you tell this so that outsiders make derision, you
will feel the edge of my knife."
They knew then that they had gone as far as was safe. When each one of
them had spoken one gibe more to show that he dared to, there was a
lull, of which Erlend the Amiable took advantage to make a tactful
suggestion.
"I shall think those fish are ghosts if I do not get some of them
between my teeth before long," he observed. And lo! ghosts and threats
were, of a sudden, things of the past.
"Get to your places," commanded the head-cook, sweeping them aside that
he might place before his chief the first portion of the crisp and rosy
dish, savory with garlic and sweet with its own freshness.
There was an eager scrambling of feet, a joyful clattering of
brass-hilted knives, a flurry of half-spoken requests; and after that
all noise gave way to a pleasant munching sound, enforced now and then
by a contented sigh or a long-drawn "Ah--h!" of satisfaction.
A mumble of applause greeted the Bull when, having licked the last
morsel from his fingers and pushed back his bowl, he looked around to
say, stretching: "I should like to see the man who could make me go back
to the old way of living!"